Originally Posted by ATC4US
What did you do? Would you keep FL 340? I'm not a pilot, but I would never do that without ATC give me a good reason
Aha! And once again we have the ridiculous situation where we are forced, ad nauseum, to try and explain to these "non-pilots" what happens in the real world. Of course you
"...would never do that without ATC give me a good reason..." because you are not a fcuking pilot and you don't understand the rules. Give us a break and go and get your licences and a job for a few years flying commercial airliners and then come back and tell us what you would and wouldn't do if ATC told you something.
CDN_ATC has explained, very succinctly and to the point, what and how we as pilots deal with clearances. It is also explained very clearly to the "non-pilots" the difference between a flight plan and an ATC clearance. I have yet to fly anywhere in the world where the differences are not understood by professional pilots. Yet here, we once again are going to have to explain to "non-pilots" the differences.
If these few examples of Brazilian "non-pilots" way of thinking and lack of understanding of the rules of the air are anything to go by, and I assume that most of the people conducting these investigations are "non-pilots", then it's a foregone conclusion what the result is going to be. No need to hold anyones breath because the pilots are going to be blamed for the fcuk up of the Brazilian ATC.
Will you please stop trying to persuade us with your stupid comparisons of highway driving or traffic lights. If you are not a pilot then you should at least save us from your stupidity by expecting us to change what we all already know about the differences between clearances and flight plans. Brazil has shown us that they are not competent enough to deserve first world status when it comes to their airspace infrastructure and the way their accidents are investigated. Blacklist them. I have already discussed this with our flight planning department and we already have special procedures in place for any flights that cross Brazilian airspace.
It has been explained many times already on this thread the difference between a flight plan and a clearance. It has also been explained many times how we deal with differences between a flight plan and level changes once en-route, whether in a radar or non-radar environment. For the "non-pilots" to keep trying to tell us that we should have changed flight level because the flight plan said so only goes to prove to us that we are dealing with "non-pilots" who have no idea how we actually operate and for them to try and quote the rules to us is as insulting as me calling them incompetents and buffoons because of their total lack of comprehension and understanding.
The above is not meant to insult those "non-pilots" who are experts in their fields of aviation incident and accident investigation and at least have an understanding of what is being explained about the differences between flight plans and clearances. Unfortunately, their cause is not helped by the "non-pilots" who are trying to persuade us that they somehow know better than us how to fly a clearance.